Compensation to crime victims

General information

The directive applies between all Member States of the European Union.

The directive requires that each EU Member State sets up a national scheme of compensation to all victims of violent, intentional crime. According to this law all victims of violent, intentional crime have access to the national compensation scheme in the Member State on whose territory the crime was committed.

To help victims of violent, intentional crime have access to compensation in cross border cases, the directive sets up a system of cooperation between national authorities:

Persons who fall victim to crime while being abroad (in an EU Member State in which they do not live) can submit the application to the assisting authority in the State which they live (Please select "Assisting authorities" in the search tool below).

The assisting authority translates and transmits the application to the deciding authority in the Member State where the crime was committed (Please select "Deciding authorities" in the search tool below). The deciding authority is responsible for assessing the application and paying the compensation.

The assisting and deciding authorities communicate among each other in the languages they have accepted. To find information about the accepted language(s) you should look at the Member State of the authority to which the information relevant to the case (e.g. application, decision or other communication) is sent.

The assisting and deciding authorities are helped by the national Central Contact Points (Please select "Central contact point" in the search tool below) whose role it is to promote cooperation between the authorities, give assistance and seek solutions in cross border situations.

The European e-Justice Portal provides you with information concerning the application of the directive and a user-friendly tool for filling in the forms.

Related links

The search tool below will help you to identify court(s)/authority(ies) competent for a specific European legal instrument. Please note that although every effort has been made to ascertain the accuracy of the results, there may be some exceptional cases concerning the determination of competence that are not necessarily covered.

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Instrument: Compensation to crime victims

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